Godon takes rare chance in Romandie prologue - 'There aren’t 50,000 chances to beat Pogacar'

The Ineos Grenadiers rider set the benchmark with a time of 3:35, finishing six seconds ahead of Ivo Oliveira and Jakob Söderqvist. Pogačar, the last rider to start, came home seven seconds down in fifth place.

“I went all out and took some risks. You don’t beat him just like that. There aren’t 50,000 chances for that,” Godon said afterwards. “I think he took a bit less risk than I did.”

The short, explosive effort suited the Frenchman. “Two years ago I was fourth in this prologue,” he said. “I really like this kind of effort. There are a lot of time trials of 20, 30 kilometres, but I really enjoy these punchy efforts.”

Godon then faced a long wait in the hot seat as the rest of the field came through. “I focused on myself all day and in the end had to wait until the finish,” he said. “Everyone had the same conditions, so that was nice. It was the same for everyone.”

Among the general classification contenders, Primož Roglič limited his losses, while others conceded more time on the opening day.

For Godon, the objective for the week has already been achieved. “The objective was to try to win a stage,” he said. “It’s already worked out and I’m very happy to have the leader’s jersey. It’s a really great year so far.”

Since his move this winter from Decathlon CMA CGM, Dorian Godon has already won stage 7 of Paris–Nice as well as stages 1 and 3 of the Volta a Catalunya.

Tomorrow, the Tour de Romandie continues with stage 1, featuring a category 1 climb with its summit 40 km from the finish in Martigny, where it remains to be seen whether Dorian Godon can hold on to the leader’s jersey.